Category Archives: General

Manchester Mortgage Brokers / Advisors

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Manchester Mortgages logoSo as 2018 draws to a close I’d like to post something completely different for a change, and in this post look at mortgage advice and brokering in Manchester. Manchester Mortgages is a company that have worked closely with us over this last year and so I’m posting some links to their services across Greater Manchester. If any of you need a mortgage advisor then please follow the links below:

Bolton
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/mortgage-broker-adviser-bolton/

Bury
Ramsbottom, Tottington, Heywood
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/bury-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Didsbury
Didsbury and the surrounding areas of Withington, Heaton Moor, Fallowfield and Chorlton.
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/didsbury-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Macclesfield
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/macclesfield-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Liverpool
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/liverpool-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Prestwich
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/prestwich-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Rochdale
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/rochdale-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Wigan
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/wigan-mortgage-broker-adviser/

Wythenshawe
Including the surrounding areas of South Manchester – Gatley, Cheadle and Stockport.
https://manchestermortgages.co.uk/wythenshawe-mortgage-broker-advisor/

Recover deleted messages from phone

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In this previous post I talked about what you need to do to retrieve deleted messages from phones and hard drives – particularly SMS (text) and Whatsapp messages.

I’m looking to see if you could recover deleted text message and pictures from a Samsung galaxy ace gt s58301. It’s an old phone last used about 4 years ago the SIM card is still in the phone.

I have a totally smashed iPhone 6splus, can you extract a backup from it please? I would like to retrieve some deleted messages, what price am I looking at?

I’ve deleted a contact on my samsung galaxy s3. I really need to get it back and am hoping you can help me retreive it. i only deleted it a few days ago if that helps. Look forward to hearing from you

The external hard drive is Toshiba. It has been working fine on a HP Spectre x360 Windows 10. I had to switch laptops which are older in Windows (I think 7/8). I was able to open the drive via My Computer but couldn’t open the files because I didn’t have the correct software, Microsoft Office. I was in the middle of downloading this. I don’t think that is any part of the drive not working but the main point is, I was able to see the files like normal. It was working. I have some messages – text (SMS) and What’sapp data that has been deleted that I need recovering. Then all of a sudden, the laptop wasn’t showing it. I tried it on other laptops and it still wasn’t showing. After research I started looking for it , in Computer Management – this now shows it as Drive 1 and require initialisation. This means it has to be wiped off? It has so much information on that drive!! It has not only my medicine degree work but so much content that was saved on previous laptops. Please can you advise.

QNAP and Synology data recovery

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I have one 3 tb hard drive in a Synology Diskstation mounted as a Synology Hybrid RAID that has failed, so I cannot retrieve any data on it via the Diskstation. (The other hard drive had failed some weeks ago so I had sent it back for a replacement). Could it be revived, and what would the rough cost be?

Drive has stopped powering up, I need to copy the files over to a new one – I’m in Chiswick.

Chiswick, London

QNAP HS210 in RAID 1, disk 2 failed (very noisy), purchased a new disk and replaced but it didn’t rebuild the array. Upon booting up with just disk 1 it fails to recover the array. QNAP support have stated there’s a hardware failure with disk 1 after running dmesg from ssh with only disk 1 inserted: JBD: Failed to read block at offset 3176

The data from the QNAP and Synology systems is backed up on a Porsche Design Lacie 2tb drive. Dropped on floor and no longer reads. Formatted for Mac. Device sometimes shows up on connected devices and sometimes reads files, but extremely slowly. Have tried data recovery software but does not work.

I have a hard drive that is no longer able to boot or when viewed as a secondary drive on another PC you are unable to initialize disk with the error message “Error initialize disk: the request could not be performed because of an i/o device error.” This was the Primary hard drive for the PC and held the OS, before it stopped booting the PC had become unusably slow but sounded normal, now I do not believe the disk is spinning. My worry is that taking it out of the PC was what killed it.

We are an architectural practice based in Chiswick and we would like to convert data from DDS-3 and DDS-4 discs into usb digital format. They would be a total mix of 12 tapes (still to confirm). Data can go back onto with RAID NAS device hard drive.

Dropped 2tb Toshiba hard drive looking for rough price to recover data and repair please

RAID Data Recovery + SD card

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RAID Recovery
Lacie 5 Big Thunderbolt RAID drive will not show up on the desktop. It seems that one of the 5 drives has failed, though all the blue LED lights are not indicating there is a problem. In disk utility, it says that 4 of the 5 drives are online, but one is missing/damaged. I need to see if the information on any or all of these drives can be recovered. And you’re correct, LaCie tech support is useless.

Netgear ReadyNAS 4 disk RAID 5
2 2Tb drives and 2 6Tb drives with 6-8Tb data to be recovered. Debían Linux OS, Configured as Linux_Raid, one drive isn’t readable and one looks potentially corrupt. I would like the data recovered to 2 new 6Tb drives and the two existing 6Tb drives. I believe a software based recovery should be possible. Data is mostly flat files with some application files, no databases in the required data.

Micro SD card recovery
I have two 32GB microSD cards (One SanDisk Ultra, one SanDisk Mobile Ultra), neither of which is recognised (I’ve tried multiple high speed reliable card readers and operating systems). Under linux one is detected as a 32MB (Megabyte) drive and the other reports “no media” as if it were a removable drive. I am an expert user and have recovered data from hard drives in the past so I am confident this is a hardware problem in both cases. I suspect (but cannot be certain) than one of the cards came from my old mobile and has some family photos / videos I would l would like to retrieve. I would be happy working with a raw dump of the card(s) – the type the “dd” tool would produce if the cards were working – so long as *some* of the data can be recovered. I would appreciate any information you can provide in terms of options, likely cost and chances of success for recovering this data.

Getting (deleted) data off of a phone

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deleted text messagesI’ve recently introduced a legal type of data recovery service where the data I extract from phones can be used in UK legal cases. Quite often I’m asked to retrieve deleted text messages, chat, internet histories or videos that were once on the phone but aren’t any longer. Most of the time, especially if the files were recently deleted, getting them back from the phone’s memory is successful. This information can then be used to support or disprove a legal case. In the UK, this process of investigating the contents of mobile phones is known as mobile phone forensics and the experts at this are Data Clinic who have a page on their site about it here: https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/computer-data-forensics/. Some of the enquiries I’ve had lately regarding recovering deleted phone data and files are:

  • Iphone 5 apple logo flashes on and off. Cannot get phone to do anything else.Phone has not been backed up.
  • My iPhone 7 plus front camera stop working and the staff replace new phone in Apple store. I try to back up data to iCloud for my old phone but i do not know iCloud upload failed in store. My old phone click “erase all content and settings” and reset now as a “not active phone”. The old phone now at home and keep switch off from this issue happened. I just quick check if any chance i can get the photos back from the phone in this situation.
  • Iphone 6 stacked on apple logo since yesterday morning 09.03. I need to recover the photos and videos. I don’t need the phone repaired, just the data. Is it something you could help with please?
  • I have a Nexus 6P which is stuck in a bootloop. It turns on to the Google logo, displays it for about 10 seconds and then goes black and starts again. The only menu you can access is the bootloader menu. Starting the phone in Recovery mode has the same effect. There’s a large number of sentimental photos and videos on the phone, would you be able to retrieve them and if so could you give me a quote?
  • I’m trying to retrieve some WhatsApp messages which I deleted back in January. Accidentally returned to factory settings, and lost photos and videos

 

Problems with Malware

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It seems that the ICT LEA offices in Doncaster and Swinton (Manchester) have been hit by some sort of malware infection. It’s not altogether clear where this came from but the feeling is the rogue software was introduced into the network by an infected pen-drive.

MalwareMalware has corrupted my photos of my young children, a handful of photos remain but the rest just have an orange icon. There is a page asking me to access a tor page to pay the ransom, I haven’t done anything about it, just turning the laptop on occasionally and hoping it’s gone away!!! It happened about 3-4 years ago and hasn’t gone away!

I’ve had my external hard drive (Toshiba 500gb) for a month and yesterday it ceased to power up. This was at the same time that I got a warning message telling me that my computer hard disk had been infected with a malware virus. The blue light is not flashing and there’s no sound coming from it. Yesterday it ejected itself from my computer and did not work anymore. I’ve tried plugging it in to different computers and cables. What I’m really concerned about is the data on it, but if it possible to recover the hard drive itself as well that would be great.

I recently got a form of malware on my computer and i disinfected it using a malware cleaning tool from off the internet. After the program had run it told me to reboot my computer. I did this but not the laptop doesn’t make it past the start up screen, I took it to a local laptop repair guy who said the laptop needed to be re built. He managed to remove the hard drive to keep holiday photos and videos which I wanted that were on there.

Malware can be a real annoyance and sometimes it can unfortunately ruin the data on your hard drive. A useful article about how to detect and remove malware can be read at http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-malware-removal-tools.

January’s Mixed Bag

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Hi All,

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks since the Christmas and New Break, so rather that concentrate singularly on hard drive, phone or “how do I get my data back?” problems, in this post I have included 3 enquiries to the service desk. Now, as we are all governed by different internal IT departments, my advice is that you search through some of the other posts on this blog to find a data recovery provider of choice. Once you’ve located one, if you’d like my personal opinion of them, please contact me privately.

Help retrieving files from Samsung S3 Neo
I was wondering if you would be able to retrieve some files from my relatives samsung s3 neo. The screen is broken but the phone boots up. I have plugged it into my pc to retrieve the files but usb debugging hasnt been enabled so I am unable to access the files without the screen being on. Is this something you could do?

Computer recognises something, but not hard drive
Booted my computer one day and one of my smaller HDDs (1TB) was just no longer visible/accessible; partitions gone, etc..
Windows could recognise that *something* was plugged in but that’s the long and short of it.
There was no work up to it, no weird noises, no drop in disk health (as far as my PC tells me), it just stopped.
I’ve switched cables out incase a cable was damaged, I switched where they were plugged into incase it was a problem with a connection, and so on.
That’s the best I can provide at the moment.
So at this point, unless anything else can be done, I’d just prefer to pull everything off it and throw in for a new HDD.
It’s not got the OS or anything crucial like that on it, it’s just a lot of everything (programs, photos, music, files, etc.) which trying to reaccumulate is more effort than it’s worth.

Dell G620 died – looking to recover photos
Computer – six years old Dell G620 has “died” and would like to try and recover picasa photos , particularly of my late wife. Other documents if possible, but not essential. Am near 80th birthday in six weeks. Can you help and at what cost? E Mail with suggestions would be helpful.

Boot Device Not Found

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HP Pavilion computer

This post is about the ‘Boot Device Not Found‘ error message on HP Pavilion computers. NB: This error message is to do with the computer’s hard drive and I advise you to contact your local support team if you have this problem.

I dropped my hp pavilion laptop (windows 8) and when I turned it on it was bleeping at me and then stopped after about half a minute. The screen is black with a message that says:
Boot Device Not Found
Please install an operating system on your hard disk.
Hard disk (3F0)
F2 system diagnostics
I have pressed F2 and ran a hard drive check and it says:
SMART check: NOT INSTALLED
short DST: NOT INSTALLED
Is this something you would be able to repair as I have photos of my son on there that aren’t backed up.

Boot device not found error message

I have a Western Digital 2TB My Passport External Hard Drive with aprox. 1.2TB of data on. When connected to my HP Pavilion PC it makes a clicking sound for a few seconds and isn’t recognised by my laptop anymore, so I’m sure it’s a mechanical fault. I get a message like “boot device not found” or similar. I can supply a 2nd hd to place any recovered files onto.

External hard drive taking ages to open and then data does not appear in the files. Most of data is camcorder footage.
How long does it take to retrieve the data?

My HP laptop recently stopped working. I took it to a local computer shop, who advised that there was a mechanical fault on the hard drive. I am interested in recovering the data held on the hard drive. Are you able to assist?

I was wondering if you would be able to help my mum has deleted her photos and videos by accident from her Pavilion laptop would you’s be able to get them back for her and if you can how much is the cost for this please.

My wifes 6 year old HP Pavilion computer which she kept using against my advice (the first one!) has developed an error where it can’t find the boot device. It finally stopped working completely / won’t charge or switch on. The phone has family photos and videos on it that weren’t backed up (as connecting drive via USB stopped working a while back). Just wondering what the chances are you can retrieve the video files and photos and how much the cost would be, also where you are based / how we would get the device to you.

Seagate expansion, Dropped it. It is read by laptop but cant see it appearing in my computer. Does not any weird noise.

Service Desk Call Summary – October 2017

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Hi All,

it support personHere’s a summary of the data recovery enquiries we’ve had at the Service Desk this last month. If you have a similar problem please remember to raise the issue with your local ICT engineer first!

  • Hard disk is making clicking noise and wont be seen as a device in my PC. Need to recover files , pictures etc.
  • I’m looking for a quote to recover data from my external hard drive. I think it may have been dropped at one point as it’s making a strange noise and my laptop won’t read the device. I also wanted to know if it’s not recovered, will I still have to pay the full price?
  • It is a external WD My Passport Hard Drive. I think it could be 1 TB, but not sure.
  • It stopped being recognised by the computer.
  • When plugged in, it buzz and the light turns on, but windows doesnt recognise it
  • I own a Toshiba 1TB external hard drive which was recently dropped, causing the drive to develop a ‘click’ and rendering its data inaccessible. I phoned earlier today and explained the situation to Phil, who kindly provided me with a breakdown of the costs involved in recovering the data – I’ve given it some thought, and have decided I would like to use your service (I’m based in London).
  • I have a seagate 1tb external hard-drive and it is no longer working.
  • I have a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex 1.5TB HDD (PN: 9zFAD1-500 1.5 TB). It will not initialise on Mac OS (Sierra) or Windows (8.1) but is recognised when plugged in on both OSs.
  • Seagate ST2000LM003. The HDD stopped working after knocking the laptop onto the floor – therefore presuming it is a mechanical failure.
  • My external hard disk is not detecting on my PC. Until couple of weeks ago, I could see the blue light on it (indication light) on the hard disk. However, now there is no light as well as I can hear a ‘tick tick tick’ sound from it. All I want is to retrieve my word and pdf files.
  • I own a WD 2TB portable drive.The serial number of the drive: *WX91A47AS8HE* P/N: WDBU6Y0020BBK-WESN. I tried various recovery options thinking it was corrupt but to no avail so, I have had to open it to check whether it was a software or a mechanical issue so this where it is at : The floater heads mechanism is not moving and the discs are not spinning. The discs appear to be in good condition. No visible scratches dust or particles. Would it possible to remove the disks and read them on another device or fix the floaters.

Until next month!

Mobile phone damaged – need data

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Here are some of the recent phone problems that have come into us on the computer support desk. Can I refer everyone to one of my previous posts about recovering files from mobile phones.

I’ve just found this website on google after searching for data recovery companies and am very much hoping you can help.
I had my Huawei phone charging in my laptop. I heard it play a start up tune which I had never heard it play before. I looked at the screen which read ‘Internal storage damaged‘. I tried taking the battery/sim/sd card out but to no avail.
Two options are given on the device when I turn it on now: to restart the phone (made no difference) and factory reset (I am reluctant to do so as I do not want to lose any data which I may potentially be able to get back).
Is this something you can help with? My main concern is getting the data back (sms/whatspp/notes/saved web bookmarks/contacts/pictures etc) but getting the phone working again would also be a bonus.

manchester phone user

I have an iPhone 5s which has been thrown on the floor and the screen has disconnected from the base. i have tried plugging it into my macbook to recover the data but the device is not being recognised. the main thing i want to recover from the phone i the pictures. would this be possible?

Have sent Samsung S6 edge to a data recovery company. They have said – “Diagnosis results have shown that in order to attempt the data recovery the media needs LAB time to crate a direct dump of the memory whether via a direct wired connection to service contacts of the memory or removal of the memory itself to allow a direct dump of the contents which will then require investigation to decipher any data modification algorithms and assembly parameters before we can make attempts to extract the data. This is a highly skilled process but unfortunately isn’t infallible and the chance of successful recovery once the process has been completed is approx 70%. The cost of this is £225 plus vat. Non refundable if unsuccessful.”

I dropped my phone into water, it is not turning on and I would like to retrieve my photos is possible!